Scientific article
OA Policy
English

The Norms of Thought: Are They Social?

ContributorsEngel, Pascal
Published inMind & society, vol. 2, no. 3, p. 129-148
Publication date2001
Abstract

A commonplace in contemporary philosophy is that mental content has normative properties. A number of writers associate this view to the idea that the normativity of content is essentially connected to its social character. I agree with the first thesis, but disagree with the second. The paper examines three kinds of views according to which the norms of thought and content are social: Wittgenstein's rule following considerations, Davidson's triangulation argument, and Brandom's inferential pragmatics, and criticizes each. It is argued that there are objective conceptual norms constitutive of mental content, but that these are not essentially social.

Keywords
  • Mental Content
  • Metaphysics
  • Norm
  • Social
  • Thought
Affiliation entities Not a UNIGE publication
Citation (ISO format)
ENGEL, Pascal. The Norms of Thought: Are They Social? In: Mind & society, 2001, vol. 2, n° 3, p. 129–148. doi: 10.1007/bf02512078
Main files (1)
Article (Accepted version)
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
Journal ISSN1593-7879
626views
711downloads

Technical informations

Creation26/01/2010 13:19:02
First validation26/01/2010 13:19:02
Update26/01/2026 13:02:07
Status update26/01/2026 13:02:07
Last indexation26/01/2026 13:02:28
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack